If you don't know what Doom is, you must be one of those weirdoes that had something better to do with their time in the summer of 1993 than play PC games. Doom is one of the most influential games of all time and popularised the whole first-person shoot-'em-up genre, and is thus the spiritual grandaddy of classics such as Quake, Half-Life, GoldenEye and even the recent Halo. Indeed, the major draw for this portable version is the cloying wave of nostalgia it brings to hardcore gamers as they set about the hordes of hell with a shotgun and a chain saw. This is an almost-perfect conversion of the original (or at least the original running on an average speed PC of the time) that even manages to include a four-player death match and a cooperative two-player mode. The music is the same, the level design is the same and best of all the gameplay is the same, with strafing working surprisingly well on the GBA's shoulder buttons. The only problem with the game, other than the inexplicable use of green blood even though it's got a 15 rating, is that the graphics can be a bit jerky in places. Which is presumably why the developers have had to ditch the two huge end-of-level bosses from the second and third episodes. In general, though, this is a technical tour de force that will have any remaining GBA doubters reaching for their wallets. --David Jenkins
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